FORGIVENESS
Opening
Prayer:
Our God and Father we thank You.
Thank you for how whole the Bible is and thank you for always teaching
us the truth.
As we study your word tonight seeking answers to
the questions in our heart, help us to be receptive to Your truth.
An open heart to unlearn and relearn.
Let the spirit of God be the teacher
tonight.
In Jesus name,
Amen.
My question to us is this:
As
Christians, are we supposed to pray for forgiveness of sins every time we pray
or even at all? What are your general thoughts and opinions concerning this?
So we had a pretty interesting conversation
yesterday (it birthed more questions in my DMs actually which we will be
treating after this) Tonight, we will be opening the Bible together and
checking what it says about this.
Please come open-minded
Also, don’t take my word for it, scripture rules over our
emotions and thoughts.
All of us will open the Bible together.
PS: Thank you to everyone who shared yesterday.
I loved how the discussion went.
So to our conversation…I would like to start
from the back and travel back to the front 😄
So let’s say we have to ask God for forgiveness
every time we sin to actually receive forgiveness. This means if you forget to
ask one thing, you are not forgiven. Or if I die without asking for
forgiveness, I die in sin, and he
who dies a sinner is of course positioned for
hell right?
Olamide: Not necessarily but why not ask if you’re
still alive and able to?
What this means is that if someone lives every
day of their life not sinning, if they sin once and forget to ask God for
forgiveness before dying they are going to hellfire.
Which now brings me to this: What we are really saying by this school of
thought is that there is no assurance of salvation.
I’m going to branch a bit and then share what
Salvation really is.
What does it mean to be saved?
How are we saved?
What are we saved from exactly?
The answers to these questions will help us
carefully answer the initial question.
Being saved simply means that our sins are no
longer counted against us unto an eternal death sentence.
But first, what are we saved from and what are
we saved into?
Because if I am to save someone from Nigeria by
removing them, I will have to place them somewhere new (My analogy doesn’t
mean we need saving from Nigeria by
the way 😂😂)
This now
brings me to The Gospel.
I am sure everyone has used this phrase at various
points in life,
The gospel simply means ‘Good news,
And I tell you that it is one of the most
important things for us as Christians.
It is what shapes our beliefs and our acts and it very much matters what we
believe about the gospel.
Is it completely good news?
What is our part to play in it for this news to
be truly good?
The Gospel is not something that every one of us
Christians can handpick what we want to believe about it?
The sole interpretation of it determines our
very walk in Christ so I need you to stay with me closely.
For I delivered to you first of all that which I
also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and
that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the
Scriptures, 1Corinthians 15:3-4 NKJV
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of
sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ.“ 1Corinthians 15:56-57 NKJV
I want us to first note that Paul was actually
writing to believers in this letter;
”Come back to your right way of thinking and
stop sinning. Some of you don’t know God. I say this to shame you.” 1
Corinthians 15:34 ERV
Yet see what he says to them in verse 34
Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some
do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.“ 1Corinthians 15:34 NKJV
I will start from vs 56
It says the strength of sin is the law
The law legalistically demands that the wages of
sin is death
What
then is this sin that has a demand of death?
When Adam fell, we inherited a nature; a sinful
nature.
We inherited sin;
it became an ingrain for mankind, follow come
essentially.
It is this nature that produces lies,
wickedness, cheating others, adultery, fornication, etc
It is the manufacturing company,
It is this nature called sin that has a demand
of death,
That translates to eternal damnation for every
man.
The bad news here is that everybody has this
nature.
So even if you are nice or you don’t lie, the
nature exists and the demand is death (eternal death)
Now what did God do?
He countered this bad news with a good news,
what we call The Gospel
Because God loves man so so much, He found a way
to ensure man is forgiven of their sins and do not stand condemned. He did this
by sending His only son Jesus Christ to carry the sins of man on himself
through death. And on rising, the son Himself who knew no sin came up without any
blame.
Which means anyone who is in Christ has come up
with Him and is without blame.
We take up the exact position of this Christ at
judgement.
Christ died for our sins,
He fulfilled the requirement of the law when it
comes to sin,
He paid the price the law demanded.
Christ dying means that the problem of sin has
been dealt with completely
“who does not need daily, as those
high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the
people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.” Hebrews
7:27 NKJV
“For by one offering He has
perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” Hebrews
10:14 NKJV
“He then would have had to suffer
often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages,
He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” Hebrews 9:26 NKJV
The writer of Hebrews makes this very clear,
whatever we believe we owe when it comes to sin has already been paid!
No one is asking for a second payment from you
if you are in Christ.
Christ paid it all Once and for all!
For all who believe, for all who will believe.
Now, I made an illustration that sin the nature
is a manufacturing company right?
If the manufacturing company’s requirement has
been sorted or it be destroyed, what happens to its produce?
Same Fate!
I will expand this further during the course of
this teaching by the way
(sin, the deeds)
“To Him all the prophets testify
(bear witness) that everyone who believes in Him [who adheres to, trusts in,
and relies on Him, giving himself up to Him] receives forgiveness of sins
through His name.” Acts 10:43 AMPC
Now, this is how we ‘enter’ Christ
By
believing
Which brings me to the next part
Everybody says they believe in Christ, but what
do we really believe?
If they ask you, you will say I’m a believer.
But what does it mean to be a believer in
Christ?
A lot of us say this as a means to be saved but
is it restricted to just saying “I believe”
What we believe determines the life we live as
Christians
Everyone who believes is forgiven
John 3:16 says everyone who believes has eternal life and is not
required to pay debts owed by sin.
A sweet package indeed
Who no go wan believe?
But what does it mean to believe?
The AMPC breaks it down
It says to believe is to:
Adhere
to Christ
Trust
in Him
Rely
on Him
Give
himself up completely to Him
Cling
to Him
Just look at these
To cling is to hold on to something strongly, to have a strong dependence in
Christ and what He did.
I need everyone to read those words again and
see what it really means to believe.
There is this creed we take, ‘The Apostles' Creed’
How many of us have heard of it before now?
The
Apostles Creed
“I
believe in God the Father Almighty
Maker
of Heaven and Earth
and
in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord,
Who
was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He
descended into Hell; on the third day He rose again
from the dead;
He
ascended into Heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God,
the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the
dead.
I
believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.”
I grew up an Anglican, so I grew up reciting
this almost every Sunday
In Yoruba, my pastor will say “e je ka jewo
otito igbagbo wa” (it means let us now confess the truth of our faith) and then
we will recite the creed of the apostles stated above.
I was reciting this almost every Sunday o, but I did not understand it.
The
truth of my faith
The truth about what I say that I believe and
what it means for me.
Some years back in my quest for truth and
Christ, I began to learn that the Apostles creed was actually a response to
heresy in the body of Christ.
Gnosticism denied divine creation, the divine
incarnation of Christ, His deity and salvation by Faith alone.
The church gathered and the response to this was
to make a creed of what the apostles taught for all who say they believe to
keep saying before men slip into works and the error of the heresy
spreading (this was most likely the 2nd century, I’m not very sure)
It is named the Apostles’ creed because it is what the
Apostles taught and we must not attempt to teach any thing other than it or
interpret it from our own lens.
Back to John 3:16
Again, are we following?
I know it’s a lot of information but I’m doing a
detailed exegesis on this so there is no room for doubt when we are done.
I can just answer that pray for forgiveness or
don’t pray and quote one or 2 scriptures, but the questions may linger.
So we must treat this from the root
I continue
Most people tend to read or translate this verse
as :
For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten son, that everyone who recognises and believe He is Saviour will never
perish but have life everlasting.
The word believe used here means more than
simply agreeing that Jesus, is truly saviour.
I believe that Tinubu is the president of
Nigeria but does that mean I believe in him? 🌚
Do I even accept him as my own president to
start with?
This statement here is simply an acknowledgement, not belief in him.
The one who believes in Christ should look at
that AMPC translation again.
For many people, the concept of their belief is
like accepting an application’s terms and condition without reading or knowing
it.
Just scroll down straight and click the I’ accept’ part. All I care about is my need for the software.
For most, all they care about is to be counted as those who are
saved. So let's just head over to the ‘I agree’ part of the contract.
And this is where most of our problems start; because we’ve not understood the
terms and condition in this contract, our usage of the software is flawed.
We begin to input how we think it should work, we are trying to troubleshoot
outside of already laid down tenets.
Which brings me back again to the laid down
terms and condition for our salvation (where we started 😃)
I continue
From all the scriptures presented (different
authors/apostles, one of them being Christ Himself), we can boldly say that the
only way man is saved is through Faith in Christ.
We already broke down this faith and what it
means to believe above.
This cancels out the theory that if you don’t
ask for forgiveness after sinning you are unforgiven.
Because what this theory is really
implying is that your salvation is dependent on your awareness of your sin and
continual asking of forgiveness for it.
Then we are now forced to ask,
Did Christ really pay it all then?
What is the worth of the blood shed on Calvary?
Does this now mean that we should not ask for
forgiveness of sin?
The answer is No
I will come back here and elaborate
What I am first ruling out is that a man will go
to hell because they forgot to ask for forgiveness for a particular sin.
Because the implication of this is living in
fear;
Living in fear of hell,
Living in fear of death every minute,
Living in bondage to sin, fear and the
flesh
Can we not see that if we travel
this lane, we are actually still living under the dictates of sin?
That fear of hell and this sin is keeping us
bound.
Making us watch our every move,
Sowing seeds of doubts about our salvation.
And when they say
Let
The redeemed of the Lord shout in Joy
We are first trying to check if we have sinned
or not,
Holding off on our joy
When our maker invites us to come fellowship
with Him, we busy ourselves first trying to ensure we are worthy to stand
before Him
As if we could ever be worthy
As if we could ever be worthy by our own deeds!
Confess your sin from now till tomorrow
If Christ did not die, hell fire straight for
all of us.
Even the best askers of forgiveness
Salvation is not a move of pity from God because
we asked for forgiveness.
Its down payment is the precious blood of Jesus
Christ, the only son of God; who is GOD HIMSELF!
These things must sink, please.
It is no more about you or I but what was
completely finished on the cross
If it is by this one, then we could have stayed
killing bulls and sacrificing goats
That was the children of God asking for
forgiveness
They did it per time
They shed blood per time
Every time they sinned
I really wish believers understand what it means
to want to pay the demand of the law yourself.
Go and ask the people in the Old Testament,
You cannot!
God saw that you cannot and that is why He
stepped in.
Or do we think the requirement for salvation
will be mere asking for
forgiveness by mouth?
Blood!
Blood!
That’s what it demands o
And since we want to be asking every 2 minutes
(knowingly and unknowingly), you will shed blood with it too every 2 minutes
Believe me when I say we cannot keep up.
Again, does this mean asking God for forgiveness
is wrong.
Answer is a Big NO
In our journey in Christ, we will make mistakes.
We will succumb to the flesh at times
In fact, I believe it is why we have to believe
and not just accept Christ
In clinging, in relying, in trusting, in
adhering to Him, in giving ourselves up to Him, what we are really doing is
becoming dead to sin day by day
I believe is a signed agreement to die to self
daily!
Asking for forgiveness for sin is not wrong!, it
is just not what saves us.
Now for those of us on the divide of never ask for forgiveness, we need
to check too and be sure it is not pride motivating us or a desire to remain in that sin because we believe we have a
bank we can pull forgiveness from.
(Repeated)
Sin is a sign of weakness in the flesh
And I tell you all of us have this in varying
degrees
For some people it is anger, some jealousy, some
pride, some gluttony etc
Don’t be deceived by perfectionism, the type
that distorts the message of Grace and perverts it. That too is a lie the devil uses
to keep men living in sin, outside of their identity in Christ.
It is why a Pastor is sleeping with church
members and still mounting the pulpit every day without remorse.
Do not deceive yourself
So
what do you do when you sin and the Holy Spirit convicts you?
Go to God with it!
Confess it to Him not because He cannot see or
He needs you to bring it to His attention to be aware.
Confess not because you feel bad or because you
think if you don’t, you will not make heaven
Confess because you need help
People make confessions only to the people they
trust.
To believe in Christ is to trust in Him
That He can help you with that struggle/weakness
It is not wrong to say I’m sorry Lord
But this also does not mean that every time we
come before God, we have to now be searching first for sin to apologize and ask
for forgiveness for.
I hope we are seeing the balance here
And can see that there can be 2 extremes to this
So the next time you are convicted by the Holy
Spirit of a sin,
It could be while praying or even while
indulging in that sin or walking on the road doing a totally different thing
Pause and ask God for help right there. Don’t
brush it off.
Don’t say that you are bigger than asking God
for forgiveness of sin,
Or the work Christ did permits you to live this
way
I hope I’m making sense and the balance is clear
to everyone.
I’d also like to clear that 1 John was actually
written to believers in a region who had been infiltrated by Gnosticism (I
explained this earlier). These people believed that knowledge is what frees us
from sin so they have no sin, which is not what the early apostles taught.
John broke this down properly in 1 John to this
set of people warning about such beliefs and infiltration
Forgive
us our sins is a relationship
conversation with the father and not a debt we owe and we are trying to
pay.
Never forget this.
And what must always follow it is Help me, Lord.
Any
forgiveness that you keep asking for without a desire to not go back (even if
you end up going back) is deception.
Now to the main question:
Why
Don’t we ask for forgiveness every time we pray on Word Alive?
There are days we do, there are days we don’t
What we have every night when we gather is
fellowship with the father. It is Koinonia.
Our focus is also not on us or our requests but
on God.
So there are times we attend prayers and the
spirit convicts us right there as we appear before God and we just begin to say to the
Lord “Have mercy, we repent of this
thing. Help us to repent truly”
And there are also days we are at prayers and magnified before us
is what happened on the cross: the forgiveness of our sins.
We are left in so much awe that we begin to
thank God for this concept of forgiveness and justification.
We do not have a legalistic approach to prayer
All we do is come before God; our Father!
We gaze upon Him,
And if He chooses, He directs our gaze back to
us, our failings and who we really are in Him
There is no script!
It is all men before God
When I walk into my father’s room every day, I
do not go saying
“Daddy before I say anything, forgive me my
sins” everyday
But you see, every day I appear before Him, I
will greet Him
I will honor and reverence him
Always!
We approach God in worship and not in guilt.
And I beg us again,
Never forget that God is Father, and don’t tilt to any of these
extremes in the body.
Stay with the scripture.
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